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The series "Kid Icarus" has been in three Super Smash Bros games. After Pit's playable appearance in Brawl, a new game for his series, "Kid Icarus: Uprising", was released. Due to this, it would be inevitable that the series would gain a fair amount of new content and representation in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. However, many people have disputed over the fact that the series has gained far too much content and "bias" representation. The most common reason for this, many people argue, is because of the fact that Kid Icarus and Smash Bros. were made by the same creator: Masahiro Sakurai.

Common points of criticism of this type include:

Pit being in the game's announcement trailer with the rest of the Original 8 apart from Yoshi, essentially "replacing" the famous dinosaur.

Lady Palutena being announced at E3 2014 along with the more "significant" Pac-Man and Mii Fighters, and sharing the latter's gimmick of 12 Custom Moves unlocked from the start. (Ironically, Palutena seems to be the most popular out of those three characters with the fanbase.)

Adding to Palutena, people have seriously started complaining that she made it in... even though she was both the most predicted newcomer on the board (beating out Chrom) and the most popular (barely edging out Ridley)

The disproportionate amount of Kid Icarus items and Smash Run enemies.

Palutena's Guidance conversations. Though they serve to replace codecs and were commonly predicted and asked for from Day 1, people still complain that the Kid Icarus characters get these. Yes, really.

On the other hand, there are many fans and reviewers who back up the amount of Kid Icarus representation. While many of these people are Kid Icarus fans themselves, a few people argue that while the series may have tons of representation in this installment, it may bethe last representation it gets in the series, as the series is unlikely to get another sequel. Which angers some of the fans even more because Sakurai said that series with no future are rarely prioritized for newcomers.

All in all, the game "Super Smash Bros." has one main point, which is to represent Nintendo's biggest and most famous stars. And while both sides of this argument have shown their own facts and opinions, nothing has been said or done by Sakurai to resolve this predicament, apart from his insistence that Dark Pit is merely a "free dessert" and hasn't taken the place of Ridley/K.Rool/insert wanted newcomer here.

In addition, Sakurai has a deep bias in the favor of Fire Emblem. Despite Fire Emblem being one of Nintendo's biggest franchises in Japan, it is niche in the west, which has led some to scream "BIAS!" at the confirmation of two newFire Emblem characters for not being Krystal or Dixie Kong. It is truly right to say that Sakurai needs to get the boot for including a Marth clone but not many other fan favourites. It is a commonly known fact that even one character for Fire Emblem is too much (at least according to special individuals like DerekMorganFBI), and Smash Bros. has six.

The three most controversial Fire Emblem characters are Corrin, Lucina and Roy - a DLC character, a clone, and a DLC clone. Liking any of these three characters and not insisting that they should be replaced with King K. Rool or Wolf and/or that they're evidence that Sakurai hates his fans and only cares about fulfilling his waifu fetish has become a felony on SmashFAQs - except that the silent majority doesn't mind them at all, even on SmashFAQs (as polls indicate).

Because Beat isn't Mega Man using something to lift him up from below, people have screamed bias because it behaves entirely different to Rush. Also he made Mega Mans Up Air way too powerful since it has a ton of push force so biaaaaaaas!

In an example of bias that people actually appreciate, the Pokémon content in SSB4 is much more in-depth and faithful to the games (especially X/Y) than in previous installments. Previous Smash installments only paid lip service to the games and seemed to pay more attention to the anime, which resulted in the series' use of Pokémon Speak and numerous anime-based trophies in Melee (and was also a source of much pleasure for ashnime hater Svedeesh_Cheff). It's not out of the question to say that Sakurai actually bothered to pick up, play and enjoy Pokémon X and Y this time around.

In fact, Greninja's moveset was based on concept sketches and largely designed by Sakurai himself together with Game Freak during the very development of X/Y rather than being inspired by the anime. Despite this, Greninja's voice acting, shared with Ash's Froakie, may suggest otherwise (even though some people like its voice); this, along with the anime (including Ash himself) being mentioned in several trophy descriptions, can cause a knee-jerk reaction with some fans that "LEL THEY'RE STILL FOLLOWING THE STUPID KIDDY ASHNIME SAKURAI SHOULD JUST PLAY THE FUCKING GAMES FOR ONCE". Even though, you know, everything outside of the voices and trophy descriptions suggests that he has (or at least tried to make it game-accurate)? Wait for the shitstorm that'll inevitably occur when Ash or Team Rocket is announced as a newcomer for SSB5.

On the negative side of things, there is also a major bias for Generation 1, while almost all of the other generations are completely neglected. In Brawl, 5/6 playable characters were from Generation 1. In Smash 4, 4/6 playable characters are from Gen 1. The Gen 1 bias is so bad that instead of adding a character from a new generation not represented (namely 2, 3 and 5), even with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire on the horizon, Sakurai decided to keep Jigglypuff (the Pokémon fanbase's least favorite Gen I rep) and Charizard (the Smash fanbase's least favorite Gen I rep) while leaving the other generations poorly represented. Yet everyone has been clamoring for Mewtwo to return, most likely because since he's a unique character from the holiest and most sacred Smash game of all timeand a genwunner favorite, he must be pure gold! But we also love Mewtwo because it is the only legendary pokemon that could work (all of the legendaries float or are stupid and fat, and no one wants Heatran.)

The Japanese people are complaining that a western-loved character got in their smash... Well, they don't seem to remember that they got Marth + Roy in Melee (both of whom came from Japanese exclusive games) and Lucas (from a Japan only game again) in Brawl, and we people who AREN'T Japanese actually want people like Lip and Captain Rainbow... AKA Characters from Japanese only games, and even then Punch-Out was released in Japan also so why are they complaining that Little Mac got in? Because Waaaaaa, Samurai Biaaaaaas.

For every bias, there is an anti bias... As in the opposite of bias which is poor treatment of a series. Even though the word "bias" means both in support of something and against something. But don't tell that to the board. In this game, he has treated the LoZ series poorly (besides all those items) by giving no changes to Link which means he'll still be shit, he seperated Zelda and Sheik to create the illusion of more characters and still hasn't cut Sheik for Impa, Toon Link is unchanged, and Ganondorf is still Falcondorf.

When the final game was released, Link and Sheik appeared to be buffed and Ganondorf was finally given a custom sword move, so make of that what you will.

Ironically, Kirby didn't receive a bias until Brawl. Though there were plans for King Dedede in both 64 and Melee, Sakurai didn't add him in Brawl for fear of overrepresenting his own series. Come Brawl, he added both King Dedede and Meta Knight , which was a good thing, but once the hype wore off people realized that Kirby, Meta Knight, and King Dedede were the only characters who actually did anything in Subspace Emissary. No, seriously. Meta Knight recovered the Halberd, while Kirby was everywhere and revived others (he was the only non-Dedede party member to be revived when Tabuu trophyfied everyone), and King Dedede was the protagonist of the story. Yes, really. Plus Meta Knight was OP, which was clearly bias and not just poor balancing or anything.

But now that Kid Icarus has been receiving all of the bias, Kirby is being shafted once more - we've gotten pretty much no new Kirby content minus Nightmare, a song, and an enemy or two in Smash Run. That's about it. Kirby is officially back on the anti-bias list.

And now people are stating that there's a different Kirby bias - that aside from Kirby's new Final Smash and a few music tracks, Sakurai seems to be completely disregarding the Kirby games not made by him. They reference how every Kirby stage in the series has been based on his games, as well as the enemies in Smash Run, among other things. This was ignited by the Great Cave Offensive being a stage despite being from an old game (Super Star) instead of something from a newer game (such as Return to Dream Land, Epic Yarn, or Mass Attack). Well, actually, it seems that Sakurai did make plans for an Epic Yarn stage, but thanks to Yoshi's Woolly World, it got converted into Great Cave Offensive, so that's something, I guess? On the other hand, the Game Boy stage that looked like it had the potential to be pretty unique ended up just being another Kirby stage (and one based on a Sakurai-developed game, too), which could potentially be an even worse example since it replaced a Super Mario Land stage.

And now, in addition to Zelda, people have started arguing about other anti-bias (especially with Metroid and Donkey Kong in comparison to Kid Icarus and Fire Emblem). Basically, the argument amounts to this:

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DK! IT'S REPRESENTED HORRIBLY!

”

“

At least it's keeping everything. Mother, Star Fox, and Ice Climbers are going down in reps. And F-Zero's treated horribly, and other games, such as Golden Sun, Advance Wars, and Custom Robo aren't even getting anything past an Assist Trophy.

”

“

But those are nowhere near as big as DK.

”

They go on further, but due to the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement, that's pretty much all we'll have here.

Due to Shulk being an extremely popular choice, only a small group of people complains of Xenoblade bias, and the majority of the group is silent. Furthermore, the word 'bias' has yet to actually be used, most likely because of the connotations it carries.

However, there are people who think that it's ridiculous that Shulk, a character that appeared in one game that at the time wasn't even a series yet (the closest was Roy, who hadn't even appeared in one game yet, but he was at the very least part of an established series) even though Xenoblade Chronicles X was almost certainly in development at the time, got in over other characters from established series, such as Saki from Sin and Punishment, Isaac of Golden Sun, any Advance Wars or Rhythm Heaven character (although seeing as a Rhythm Heaven character was seemingly planned, this one is no longer applicable), etc.

Since Shulk is so popular, however, he has a rabid legion of defenders, discouraging anyone from complaining about Shulk. While we're not going to comment on whether these gripes are legitimate, complain about Shulk at your own risk.

The other Xenoblade bias is Metal Face. Only the popular franchises, Metroid and Megaman got stage bosses, and then Sakurai had bias for this niche series and gave it a stage boss. What is even worse, is Metal Face has 49 voice sayings!!! That is way more lines than Ridley or Yellow Devil.

Despite Mario being Nintendo's biggest franchise (and Mario's being one of if not the most recognizable fictional characters ever), some people are complaining that Mario has too many reps at 7 (for the record, it had 2 in 64, 5 in Melee, and 4 in Brawl; for comparison, in Brawl, Zelda had 5, and Pokemon almost had 7 or 8 before ultimately ending up with 6).

Despite that, there aren't really any complaints about the amount of other Mario content, except for the fact that Mario Series X didn't get much, while Mario Series Y did. A common complaint is that the Mario reps seem to be meant to represent the "mainstream" Mario games (especially the highly controversial New Super Mario Bros. series) more than anything else, while popular characters from the spinoffs (such as Waluigi, Cackletta, Fawful, Antasma, Geno and Rawk Hawk) get shafted; in fact, despite the apparent Mario bias, not a single Mario spinoff character has been playable in Smash to date. However, it must be noted that Geno actually was considered, and he did get a Mii costume, so this is slightly better. Of course, Geno likely would've been a controversial rep on his own had he made it in.

Also, some people try to inflate these claims by saying that Mario has up to 11 characters (including Yoshi, Wario, Donkey Kong, and Diddy Kong). Despite Yoshi being the only one who's even debatably a Mario character and Smash's considering Yoshi to rep his own series.

Also, every player's default online profile icon in the 3DS version is Mario's CSS portrait (he's also everywhere in the Options menu, but that was already the case since Brawl). Nope, not the SSB logo or something "blank", just a specific character who happens to be Nintendo's mascot. Make of that what you will.

Also also, the selection of Mario stages in the 3DS version has come under fire, mostly because it seems more like advertising for the latest handheld Mario titles than a celebration of Mario's history on handhelds, with two stages coming from games that weren't particularly liked (New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Paper Mario: Sticker Star), leading to a grand total of three stages based on generic early Mario sidescroller levels (four if the Paper Mario stage is counted). However, as mentioned in the Kirby section, a Mario Land stage was planned, only for the Game Boy stage to replace it.

Also also also, Mario character amiibos are infamously the most common and widely-distributed amiibos in any store; even Peach is much easier to find than characters that are more popular and sell better than her such as Link, Samus and Kirby. Not only that, but Nintendo announced a separate Super Mario line of amiibo, which consists entirely of characters that are already common in the Smash line (except for Toad) with more boring sculpts and poses, and quite a few people believe that Nintendo attempting to push the Super Mario line is one reason why Smash Wave 4 pre-orders are being delayed for so long. Mario also gets a Gold Amiibo, and a Silver amiibo. You know who else gets 4 amiibos of themselves? Me neither. Well, nowadays, there are a lot of Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Link, and Zelda amiibo, so this is slightly better.

Also also also also, notice how Sakurai didn't put Wario in Melee because he apparently deserved better than being a Mario clone, but was perfectly fine with the idea of Falcondorf... hmm... Well, actually, it turns out that that's a common misconception and that while Wario was cut (as well as briefly considered for clone status), Sakurai never actually said that he deserved better and cut him to avoid Mario overrepresentation.

With Wario's one attack from Wario Land being turned into a generic punch (as well as his losing an alt. from one of the Wario Land games), people have started complaining of Wario Land anti-bias - there is pretty much 0 Wario Land representation. Wario as a whole mostly represents the WarioWare series (representation of which is fine), he has a few attacks representing Wario World, and his final smash represents Master of Disguise, but Land itself, which includes the first 10 years of his existence, has officially lost any and all reference. This was only magnified by Game & Wario, a WarioWare spinoff, getting a stage on the Wii U version, while at this point we're not sure if Sakurai even knows what Wario Land is.

Sakurai must dislike David Wise because he's a talented caucasian composer, that's why he picked the laziest choices and 5 versions of jungle hijinx. Yah I said it. Sakurai racist confirmed.

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—Mechani-KongII

Eventually, people realized that western-developed games (i.e. both Donkey Kong Country series, Metroid Prime trilogy) get almost no content while Sakurai still adds characters like Marth, Roy, and Lucas. And Shulk wasn't yet in America when the roster was decided, too.

In Metroid's case, notice how the amount of SSB4 content based on Other M (a reviled Japanese-developed entry) completely dwarfs the amount of Brawl content based on the Metroid Prime trilogy (highly acclaimed American-developed entries). This includes the designs of regular Samus and Zero Suit Samus, which were only based on Zero Mission (again Japan-developed) in Brawl but are based on Other M in SSB4. Fortunately, they didn't go much further than some aspects of the visual designs themselves, which many argue still look rather cool (both Samuses are still tall, Zero Suit Samus has her old hairstyle and new bracelets, her Other M high heels are now weaponized, and she's still voiced by Alesia Glidewell instead of Jessica Martin whining about THE BABY in her taunts and victory quotes).

Even Kid Icarus isn't above this. While it may have more focus in SSB4, one game (in a series with three games) is completely absent in both versions, to the point of not even being namedropped - Of Myths and Monsters, a Game Boy game that wasn't released in Japan until the 3DS Virtual Console.

That is to say, any character at all (except for Dark Pit and Corrin) will go from being reviled pre-reveal to being widely accepted and praised. Rosalina's a ridiculous choice? Hey, she got in, what a spectacular pick! Robin should never get in over Chrom? Haha, Chrom's a joke, I can't believe anyone ever even considered the main character over an avatar. And so on.